PhD researcher on oxide semiconductor based memory devices

Oxide semiconductors such as Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide (or IGZO for short) are gaining a lot of attention because of some particular properties : they can be processed at low temperatures, can therefore also be integrated in the back-end-of-line (BEOL), and most importantly they exhibit very low leakage currents because of their relatively large band gap. Especially the latter property has triggered companies and research institutes to investigate the potential for new memory devices. Indeed, while having a very low junction leakage, the transistor can be connected to a storage node without significant charge leakage from that node. However, these cells exhibit quite low on-currents and therefore, new schemes and improved material processing have to be explored in order for these devices to become practical.

The PhD aims at defining the required material specifications in order to enable these new memory device architectures and also at inventing new cell structures that are more compatible with the particular properties of these materials. This implies: understanding the material properties, fitting them on particular cell structures, processing and evaluating these structures and arrive at a model for circuit implementation.